HomeNewsNew antibiotic could eliminate the global threat of antibiotic-resistant infections

New antibiotic could eliminate the global threat of antibiotic-resistant infections

May 31, 2017

Modified vancomycin antibiotic (credit: Akinori Okano et al./PNAS)

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have discovered a way to structurally modify the antibiotic called vancomycin to make an already-powerful version of the antibiotic even more potent — an advance that could eliminate the threat of antibiotic-resistant infections for years to come.

“Doctors could use this modified form of vancomycin without fear of resistance emerging,” said Dale Boger, co-chair of TSRI’s Department of Chemistry, whose team announced the finding Monday (May 29, 2016) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“The death of a hospitalized patient in Reno Nevada for whom no available antibiotics worked highlights what World Health Organization and other public-health experts have been warning: antibiotic resistance is a serious threat and has gone global,” KurzweilAIreported in January 2017. The new finding promises to lead to a solution.

First antibiotic to have three independent mechanisms of action

Vancomycin has been prescribed by doctors for 60 years, and bacteria are only now developing resistance to it, according to Boger, who called vancomycin “magical” for its proven strength against infections. Previous studies by Boger and his colleagues at TSRI had shown that it is possible to add two modifications to vancomycin to make it even more potent. “With these modifications, you need less of the drug to have the same effect,” Boger said.

The new study shows that scientists can now make a third modification that interferes with a bacterium’s cell wall in a new way, with promising results. Combined with the previous modifications, this alteration gives vancomycin a 1,000-fold increase in activity, meaning doctors would need to use less of the antibiotic to fight infection.

The discovery makes this version of vancomycin the first antibiotic to have three independent mechanisms of action. “This increases the durability of this antibiotic,” said Boger. “Organisms just can’t simultaneously work to find a way around three independent mechanisms of action. Even if they found a solution to one of those, the organisms would still be killed by the other two.”

Tested against Enterococci bacteria, the new version of vancomycin killed both vancomycin-resistant Enterococci and the original forms of Enterococci. The next step in this research is to design a way to synthesize the modified vancomycin using fewer steps in the lab; the current method takes 30 steps.

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The article states that one problem is that the procedure to synthesize the new antibiotic takes 30 steps and they want to shorten it.
The use of CRISPR-Cas9 and its analogues offers the potential to fairly easily both remove and add new genetic material to an organism. At present most genes can be transplanted from any species to any other species, plant or animal.It is only a small step to manufacture genes for any protein even if it doesn’t exist in nature. Since many organisms produce organic molecules, although the procedures are more involved than proteins , once the process is understood we should be able to produce any organic molecule If such a technique can be developed to convert any organic molecule into genetic material for creation by an organism then almost any organic chemical could be made in any quantity cheaply and easily.

The approach as stated seems to produce a much more powerful form of Vancomycin. In a sense it is a variation of the use of several different cancer drugs to increase the cure rate for particular types of the disease. In this case three different modes of chemical destruction are combined in the same drug. If the results with cancer have any relevence, although the cure rate is greatly increased itis never total.This approach could be used with most antibiotics that work poorly because of acquired resistance by the microbes.Microbes have the ability to transfer plasmids that contain effective resistance against a particular type of antibiotic and once such transferable material exists in one cell, it can easily be transmitted to most species.This is a major type of bacterial resistance which has not been directly attacked chemically in antibiotics.
We are really at the point where we can begin to consider points of attack theoretically against bacteria or any type of microrganism and to concurrently design destructive drugs or segements of drugs that will greatly prevent the organism from acquiring resistance.